


Clip My Wings So I Can't Fly

by Damalia (Achrya)



Series: Avengers ABO Stuff [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Biting, Kissing, Language, M/M, Mating, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Verse, Omega/Omega, Sex, Sexism, Slurs, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, Underage Kissing, but...they're both underage if that helps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-14 08:52:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4558404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Damalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>So he wasn’t looking for a new mate. Wasn’t looking for some magic healing alpha cock to fix him right up, balance out all the hormones, banish his nightmares and depression and all the other shit his therapist had suggested might happen. He was fine with depression and nightmares and whacked out hormones, honestly, welcomed them even because they kept Riley fresh in his mind, kept the pain from dulling.</em><br/><em>He was afraid of a world where he stopped waking up and reaching for Riley.</em><br/>All his life it had been SamandRiley, RileyandSam; they’d gone from a shared playpen to puppy piles to awkward boners to mating.  He was supposed to marry Riley, have pups, and be some kind of perfect submissive omega mate. He wasn't supposed to go to college or be part of Project Falcon or lose Riley or embark on a sexuality crisis sometime after 30 because of Steve Rogers, a stupidly attractive omega, aka Captain America<br/>AKA The life and times of omega Sam Wilson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's Not Me

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t own a thing  
> Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine (but hopefully not story ruining)  
> Notes: Takes place right before ‘You Need Space, You Need Time’. Sam’s story was complex and needed to be told elsewhere (he was taking over the other story). I didn’t...intend all of this though. Sam demanded attention and time and Steve and well...it’s Sam. Couldn’t say no. This is like...two stories at once, actually. The first part of each chapter will always be Sam and Steve stuff and then the rest will be Sam's life/Sam and Riley stuff.  
> Warnings: There’s just a fuckton of casual sexism in this story and it's pretty much accepted.

“You know,” Steve said with the kind of forced casualness that only happens when an uncomfortable topic had been touched upon. “I never thought I’d live to see the day they let omegas in the military.”

Sam laughed shortly. “You still haven’t.”

Steve, who was kind of adorable and Sam hated him for it, did a fantastic impression of a fish out of water. Sam considered explaining, putting him out of his clearly confused misery, but then Steve was suggesting they grab something to eat and Sam was never one to turn down food. Besides, food was safe and didn’t involve talking about how Steve had no idea what made him happy.

Sam knew that sometimes not talking about things was more important than talking about them and he was fine with that.

They ended up at his place and sex was had.  A lot of it, or as much as you could cram into 5 or so hours. Sam learned about super solider stamina and it was incredibly enlightening. There was no knotting but Sam didn’t think it was that strange; he as an omega and Steve was an alpha (thought his scent was faint but lots of people had faint scents. Supposedly the stronger it was the more fertile. Sam’s omega scent was light, so light he was mistaken for a beta on occasion, so he wasn’t going to criticize) but he wasn’t in heat. He hadn’t gone into heat in about 18 months, not since Riley had died, and he lacked the sweet scent of fertility and whatever else it was that got alphas to pop their knots.

It was better that way because Sam already felt like a whole pile of shit screwing around with someone who wasn’t Riley so he didn’t need to add heats or knots or god forbid biting onto the whole thing.

Steve left and went back to his place that night and left Sam to think deep thoughts. He wasn’t sure what to make of the fact he’d just fucked some guy he’d met twice. Oh sure, Steve was Captain America and Sam was as much a fan as anyone, so he knew plenty about the guy but he didn’t really know the guy. And even if he had it wasn’t like he’d ever been the kind of guy to just randomly go home with any good looking alpha who showed interest.

Or anyone, really. His sex drive had pretty much been in the gutter for the past year and a half and before that...well before that was Riley.

There had always been Riley, actually. Puberty had been all about hoping they had complementary dynamics because he hadn’t been able to see anything but Riley most of his life. He’d been so wrapped up in Riley that he’d never thought anything else would do it for him.

But, nope, there he was lying in bed, an absolute mess of lube, slick, cum and whatever else because of someone who was very much not Riley. Steve had without a doubt done it for him (and, the part of his brain that was 12 giggled, to him and let Sam do it to him in return.) 

There weren’t a lot of people who could say they’d seen a person hit with an RPG. Not a vehicle or a building but one lone man in the sky, suddenly blotted out by fire and smoke and reduced to...nothing but debris.

There were even less people who could say they’d seen it happen their mate.

He knew some people expected him to just curl up and die without Riley. That was what omegas were supposed to do when bonds were traumatically severed, wasn't it? He’d entertained the thought, had sat down with a gun in his hand a few times and gone so far as to put it into his mouth. He'd tasted metal and gunpowder, felt cool metal on his tongue, but he hadn’t done it. Not for any worthwhile reasons like leaving his family behind or it not being what Riley would have wanted or because of finding some inner strength.

He was just really afraid to die. He didn't know if that meant the bond with Riley hadn't been 'deep enough' or 'real enough' or maybe all that shit people said about profound bonds and losing your mate being a fate worse than death were full of shit. He'd found that when it came to secondary genders a lot of people were full of it. There wasn't much magic to be found in his life and he'd ended up bonded to his best friend, the people who knew him best and accepted him utterly unconditionally. 

So he wasn’t looking for a new mate. Wasn’t looking for some magic healing alpha cock to fix him right up, balance out all the hormones, banish his nightmares and depression and all the other shit his therapist had suggested might happen. He was fine with depression and nightmares and whacked out hormones, honestly, welcomed them even because they kept Riley fresh in his mind, kept the pain from dulling. 

He was afraid of a world where he stopped waking up and reaching for Riley.

All his life it had been SamandRiley, RileyandSam; they’d gone from a shared playpen to puppy piles to awkward boners to mating to the military together. Riley’s mom had started planning the wedding before they’d even presented (and oh what a happy day it had been in their homes when Riley presented alpha and he presented omega).

He didn’t know how to be with anyone else and shouldn’t have wanted to be with anyone else, shouldn’t be moving on.

\--

Sam didn’t remember meeting Riley or a time without Riley because really there was no time without him.  

They were both military brats and their sires worked as MP’s on the same base in North Carolina. Riley was the only child of an alpha male and beta woman (Richard and Sharon) and Sam was the youngest of four children born to an alpha female and an omega female (Paula and Darlene). Sam’s mother didn’t work, like most omegas, and so she became Riley’s babysitter while his parents were gone.

They’d shared cribs and playpens and toys and food. They were best friends before they knew what best friends were. They started school together and while they had other friends they remained inseparable.

Riley’s mother would coo over them and say weird things about imprinting and perfect mates and ‘make my words, they’ll present together and it will work out just right’. Which Sam thought was pretty gross once he was old enough to understand it because anything dealing with secondary genders and mating and babies was pretty gross to him.

All he cared about was Riley and growing up to join the military. His sire was third generation army and he’d always figured he and his older sisters would follow along with that path. He never considered that maybe they’d end up as omegas and be barred from the military even though considering they’d had an omega mother it was something that was very possible.

When he was 10 the last of his older sisters presented, putting the breakdown at 2 betas and an alpha. Something shifted after that.

\--

A hand touched the top of his head and he was surrounded by the scent of syrup. He tilted his head back and smiled at his mother. They were having a Presentation party for Ashley but he’d gotten bored after the first hour and his Sire had let him leave. Riley had been bored too but he’d had to stay. Riley had whined, loudly, but his mother had scolded him and said that these sorts of things were important for alphas and it was good for Riley to get used to it now.

Sam had considered staying because Riley had to stay but Riley’s mother had just smiled at him and told him to go ahead and that no one expected him to be interested.

He’d ended up in the kitchen with his mother, watching as she iced the cake, stirred things on the stove, and arranged food to look pretty. She smiled at him often, brushing her wrist against his neck and explaining things as she went. She seemed to think he was interested in what she was doing and he wasn’t but he liked to humor her when he could, especially since she was in the kitchen all by herself.

“Why don’t you go take Riley some cake?” She smiled back at him then indicated the plate of cake she’d set on the counter next to him. He shrugged then slide off of his stool. She handed the paper plate to him then picked up the rest of the plate and started towards the door that lead to the living room.

It was still full of people, family and Ashley’s friends and it sounded like they were talking about his sister Caroline, the alpha, joining the navy while his sire protested loudly that no daughter of her’s would do any such thing.The talk stopped abruptly when his mother breezed in, all smiles and soft syrup scent. She walked the cake to the card table that had been set up in the corner of the room and was full of wrapped gifts and other desserts.

Sam started to follow her but she shook her head sharply then pointed at Riley who was sitting on the floor between his parent’s chairs and looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. He changed his course to bring the cake to Riley who perked up considerably at the sight. His fright managed a ‘thank you’ before trying to inhale the cake in one go.

As he followed his mother back into the kitchen, once she’d handed cake to his sire and Caroline, he heard his uncle Sean laughing.

“You’re starting a little Sam early aren’t you? What if he’s not an omega?”

“Oh no!” Riley’s mother said, tone sharp and serious. “He is. You can just tell when they’re together. Their scents blend perfectly.”

His sire hummed quietly. “Darlene is worried about him. She wants him focused on being a good mate for Riley, not listening to his sister’s talk, and she’d the expert on omegas.”

His mother put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him into the kitchen and back towards his seat by the counter. The door swished shut behind them, blocking off the voices of the others. She squeezed his shoulder then pushed him towards the pantry door gently.

“Sammy, grab a drink for Riley. You know what he likes, don’t you?.” She smiled again, a small gentle thing that made him feel strangely sad. “These are important things for you to know, okay?”

He nodded.

\---

He stopped talking about joining the military. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to or forgot about it, how could he with Caroline joining the Navy and leaving the house, with his sire coming home in her uniform every day, and living so close to base. He went to school on base as well, surrounded by other military kids, saw their parents come to pick them up every day.

It was just that no listened anymore. No one smiled at him when he talked about what he wanted to do when he grew up. They didn’t laugh or look happy like they did when Riley (who’d gone from soldier to fireman to astronaut back to solider in under a year) talked about what he was going to do.  

Instead they started gently suggesting that maybe children and being a good mate was what he should be more concerned about, like his mother was. By the time he was 12 he’d come to accept that the adults in his life knew something he didn’t and did as he was told.

It was also always very heavily implied that Riley was the one he’d need to be a good mate for. No one entertained the idea that something else might happen. When their other friends started presenting the ones who ended up alpha weren’t allowed over his house anymore and Riley was told to stick close to him when they were in school _Just In Case._

Sam didn’t know what ‘Just in Case’ was supposed to be then but he could tell it was a bad thing and apparently had everything to do with the kids in their class who ended up alphas.

They had one friend when presented as omega when they were 11. She stopped coming to school the next year but she was allowed to come over and play with Sam sometimes, though she spent most of the time shadowing his mother and watching her reverently.

A few other classmates ended up omega and only one stayed in their school, but they spent all their time with the handful of older omega students, put into a special class on the far end of the school where their scent wouldn’t bother anyone and

When they were 12 he and Riley stopped hanging all over each other, stopped sharing the same space on the couch and porch, stopped sleeping in the same bed during sleepovers. It happened all at once, almost overnight. He didn’t like it but when he tried to say something Riley would just get this weird look on his face and told him to forget about. When he talked to his sire about it she frowned then pulled him into her lap and launched into a lecture about courting and appropriate behavior and why it was a good thing that Riley was such a good alpha who understood these kinds of things because it meant he’d never ‘Get Sam in trouble.’

Halfway through the school year Riley presented as an alpha to absolutely no one’s surprise. Sam couldn’t help but feel that everyone he knew was watching him, waiting and holding their breaths, including Riley.

He was just shy of 14 when he started dreading the inevitably of being an omega. Everyone’s scents were coming in stronger, changing as they settled into their dynamics and it’s only Sam and a few other stragglers left.

No one seemed worried. His mother had gone into her first heat when she was 15 so Sam had plenty of time, and omegas tended to present later than alphas and betas anyway. It was just another sign that everyone else had been right all along. He’d present eventually and start going into heat and that would mean he was ready to be mated, to be bred.

The idea made him nauseous.

He’d learned about heats in health class, though not as extensively as he would have if he’d been in the special omega classes. Most of what he learned he heard from the other kids in school. There was a pack of older alphas who were all too happy to sit close to Sam’s group of friends in the cafeteria and loudly talk about omegas they’d fucked, spinning filthy details and snickering. They'd look across the cafeteria or recess recess yard to where the small clump of omegas were and they’d go on about how omegas were all sex crazed when they went into heat, willing to do anything for an alpha’s knot, about how slick and tight and perfect it was.

Knotsluts. Bitches. Whores. Breeders. There were a lot of insults for omegas and Sam had heard a ton of them.

He tried not to listen, knew it was just a bunch of idiots trying to torment younger kids by being gross, but it weighed heavily on him. He didn’t think of his mother as any of the slurs he’d heard and no one treated her badly...but they treated her differently.

Sam didn’t think he wanted to be treated differently.

\---

“Hey.” He looked up from the dishes he was washing to see Riley standing in the door of the kitchen, hands clasped behind his back and looking awkward. Riley always looked awkward lately and Sam figured it was for the same reasons as everyone else they went to school with.

Just about everyone he knew was obsessed with sex. His lack of a secondary gender didn’t mean Sam was unaware; the whole year had been a series of ill timed boners and furtive jerking off in the rare moments he was alone and trying to figure out if touching himself while thinking about Riley was okay or not, since everyone said they were going to end up mated anyway.

Riley wasn’t like the other alphas. There was none of the fighting or posturing or chasing after the betas and omegas when the teachers weren't around. He seemed happy to just stick close to Sam and never talk about secondary genders or mating or heats or sex and

Well. He was Riley. Same as he’s always been. He still listened when Sam talked about things he’d liked to do other than being someone’s mate and mother. He was little taller than Sam now, a little less chubby than he’d been the year before, but the same light brown hair, tanned skin, and dark brown eyes. He smelled like grass and pine and something that Sam sometimes found himself closing his eyes and trying to breathe in, chase down, and it made him lightheaded.

He knew he was close to presenting, knew what he smelled as that unique musky scent that meant ‘alpha’, knew he liked it even though he didn’t want to.

Knew that meant he was the omega everyone had always said he’d be.

He tried not to think about it too much, tried to enjoy what he had left because he was sure he’d be pulled out of school and it would just be a waiting game after that.

“Yeah?”

Riley shifted on his feet then stepped all the way into the kitchen, letting the door shut after him. “Your birthday is tomorrow.”

“Did you think I forgot?” Sam stepped away from the sink while trying his hand on a towel. Riley flushed and shook his head then looked down at his feet. Okay. Weird. “You staying over tomorrow?”

“Um. Depends.”

“On what?” He arched an eyebrow. Even though they slept over at each other’s houses way less often they still spent their birthday’s together.

Riley didn’t say anyway. Instead he looked around then pointed at the back door. Sam hesitated for a moment, stomach fluttering, then nodded. They went out, shutting the screen door quietly and sat on the back steps. It was getting dark but it was the weekend and warm out; Sam could hear kids shouting and laughing somewhere out in the neighborhood.

Riley shifted closer, until they were pressed against each other and slipped his arm around Sam’s shoulder. They sat and it was silent and awkward and tense and Sam kept casting looks over at his best friend, wondering if he was the one who was supposed to do something.

Everyone made it sound like being forward was a bad thing; he’d gotten lectures, actual lectures, on how proper courting was supposed to work and how he was supposed to let the alpha (or beta because that could happen even if no one thought it was going to) take the lead and all the things he wasn’t supposed to do because

Well.

Whatever.

Sam moved, put a hand on Riley’s knee and leaned in. He caught the corner of Riley’s mouth and it was a dry press that ended up being mostly on the cheek but then Riley turned his head and their foreheads knocked together as lips mashed dryly. It was only a second but he felt like his heart was being squeezed and his stomach was rolling. Riley’s eyes were squeezed shut and it was actually kind of funny and a laugh bubbled out.

Riley’s eyes snapped open and he drew back, mouth settling into a frown. “Jerk.”

Sam smiled and he felt like it was too big and was showing too much teeth. “Sorry.”

“Whatever.” Riley muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. Sam’s smile stretched and it was almost painful but he couldn’t stop himself. He felt strangely warm and light. He pressed against Riley’s side, saw brown eyes slide over to look at him then flit down to his lips and back up. A flush made its way over his face, turned his tanned skin pink.

Sam leaned in again. One of them tilted their head to the side and their lips found a better fit the second time. And third time and by the fourth Sam was pretty sure they were actually getting a pretty good handle on the whole thing.

“I don’t know what this has to do with you staying over tomorrow or not.”

Riley laughed and Sam settled against his side, rested his head on his shoulder and forgot why he’d been so worried about the omega thing anyway.

It meant being with Riley and wasn’t that one of those things he’d always wanted?

\--

Two months and a lot of sneaking around to kiss where no one could see them later Sam went into heat.

It was terrible and he felt furious and disgusting and embarrassed and hot and uncomfortable the entire time. His mother floated around a huge smile plastered on her face while his sire sat around bemoaning the loss of her last baby.

Sam didn’t care about them. They were stupid and ridiculous and made absolutely no sense and he hated them. He hated everyone and everything.

Preheat was full of painful cramping and vomiting and flashes of heat and leaking and the strange urge to strip all the sheets off his bed and build a little cocoon nest whatever the hell.

Which he did. He felt moderately better when he was in it, oddly soothed and safe.

When he climbed out to get food and water and use the bathroom he found himself feel cagey and strange. He paced and raged and broke things then he cried and snapped at people. His mother just patted his head and smiled at him indulgently before insisting he eat more.

His actual heat didn’t involve any puking or cramping so he was willing to consider it better than the lead up. He felt weird in his own body, like he was too big and pushing against his skin, just on the cusp of breaking out. He was itchy and everything outside of his next felt too tight, too rough, all wrong.

There was still a lot of leaking and it smelled sugary sweet and felt gross running down his legs and he concluded he hated it to.

He was lonely and sticky and horny and he was missing something and knew just what it was, which made the experience that much worse. He thought about the stories people told about sex crazed omegas who would do anything, anything, to be knotted while they were in heat and he trembled and whined and swore because he wanted it.

He hated that most of all.

Hated himself.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much casual sexism you guys.  
> Note that Sam is under the impression that Steve is an alpha. Serum shenanigans.


	2. Bury Me Deep but I Won’t Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve makes Sam feel things and it’s a problem, okay?  
> There came a point where Sam started to accept the way things were. You can only be told how your life is supposed to be so many times before arguing just gets old. Riley has plans. ...assuming 'Whatever makes Sam happy' is a plan. ...That's a plan right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confused/Tired/Angry Sam depressed me because he’s annoyed and self aware but just...tired.  
> Annnnd at a certain point this becomes kinda smutty. *hangs head* It’s skippable, honestly. Just a lot of Sam’s panicked/confused/totally into it sex narrative.

The next time he saw Steve the man was standing outside his house with the redhaired woman who’d picked him up after his run, looking dirty and like he was having the worst day ever. Steve looked at him with soft blue eyes, talking about not knowing who they could trust and fuck Sam’s life because he’d let the man in.

He so clearly had a problem.

Steve showed up at the VA and Sam talked about Riley, something he almost never did (Not because he couldn’t, because he was past the stage of feeling like he was choking and dying and vomiting when he tried to talk about Riley, but because when you told people your alpha had been reduced to tiny flaming chunks right in front of you they got this look that made Sam want to punch them.). Steve showed up at his door dirty and looking like he’d taken a serious hit and Sam invited him inside and started making breakfast for him, which was just strange and weirdly domestic and Sam had never been all that domestic even when he was supposed to be.

Natasha had smirked behind her coffee cup the entire time.

Steve was in his life and suddenly he was pulling out the file on project Falcon, breaking into military installations, exchanging banter with a tiny alpha woman who he was pretty sure could kill him without messing up her makeup, strapping on his wings and cleaning his guns, jumping off of buildings and flying again.

Steve made him want to do those things, even though they not just opened up old wounds, but dug in with claws and then packed salt in there. He put himself right back into the sort of shit he’d left behind after Riley died and he couldn’t make himself care.

He was almost grateful when Steve’s dead best friend who was clearly not dead but brainwashed to be The Most Badass Killer ever (Natasha had snorted and tossed her hair like she was offended when he’d said that, leading Sam to believe she thought of herself as the most badass killer ever) showed up because it was a pretty solid ass distraction from everything else.

He got caught up and it felt good.  

And then Steve had gone and blown himself up, more or less, and Sam was pretty sure his heart stopped and he actually stopped breathing. Oh sure he managed to help Natasha and Maria Hill find Steve and get him hustled off to some private Stark Industries facility (Natasha had explained, after everything had settled, that normal hospitals were out of the questions because there were people out there who were literally interested in stealing Steve’s blood. It was about the creepiest thing Sam had ever heard).

He even sat vigil at Steve’s bedside like some kind of lovesick creeper, leaving exactly once to grab a change of clothes and some music. He endured the knowing looks of all the people who floated in and out and the constant smirks from Natasha and her friend Clint, who just climbed in through the window with a short ‘I was in South America’ and plopped into a seat next to the redhead one night.

He read a book without really seeing the words and built a playlist of what he felt was all the essential ‘can’t live without it’ music between the 40’s and the present, looked at schematics for a new set of wings that kept popping up in his (private) email from ‘[Iamironman@StarkIndustries.org](mailto:Iamironman@StarkIndustries.org)’ and made a few color adjustments (No to white and gold, yes to red and black) and felt like he was suffocating the entire time.

On the upside it kept him from having to think about why the hell he was sitting next to Steve, who was probably fine and was literally healing so fast that he’d been ‘out of the woods’ within the first 24 hours.

Then Steve woke up with a quiet ‘on your left’ and Sam was able to breathe again.

Steve was ready to be discharged within the week, which blew Sam’s mind even with the knowledge of super solider serum and healing. It was a good thing because Sam needed to get out of there and slink home and think about the state of his life but...surprising.

“Captain Rogers.” Dr. Jacques, who’d been overseeing Steve the entire time, stuck his head in the room. He was an older man with a Canadian accent who’d said, absently, that he was Stark’s personal doctor. “You are preparing to leave?”

Steve, who’d been dressed and sitting impatiently on the end of his bed for the past sixty minutes and had started looking longingly at the window like he was seriously contemplating just jumping out, nodded.

Jacques shuffled over and picked up the clipboard hanging from the end of Steve’s bed. “Very good. I just need you to answer a few questions so I can make sure your file is current.”

“Sure, great.” Steve looked like he would have agreed to anything if it got him out of there. Sam snorted softly then sat up a bit straighter when he realized the doctor was looking at him pointedly.

“Oh. Should I go? I can go.”

Steve reached out, large hand circling his wrist. “It’s fine.” He looked over at Jacques. “It’s fine. I doubt anything can be more embarrassing than the stuff they put in the museum these days.”

Steve’s hatred of the exhibit dedicated to him was, at this point, not even thinly veiled.

Jacques blinked slowly then shrugged. A pen was pulled out from somewhere. “According to your file your last heat was in 1944, is that still accurate?”

Sam choked.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Steve said, staring at Sam intently. “I feel like maybe I forgot to mention some things?”

\----

Sam stayed in school after he presented, though he was promptly moved to the omega only classes, which weren’t the best. There was as much time dedicated to expectations of omegas in the ‘real world’ as actual academics and it made Sam feel strangely claustrophobic.

His mother fretted over it and his sire had frowned and worried but Sam wanted to stay and Riley backed him up so that’s what happened. Riley was, after all, his future mate and the one who’d be taking responsibility for him once he was old enough and left his parent’s house so his opinion mattered to Sam’s parents.  

That was how it worked with omegas. You belonged to your parents and they made all the choices for you until you got handed over to your mate and then they made all the choices. Omegas were too weak, too submissive, too precious and delicate and a whole bunch of other things that Sam didn’t think described him but were the reasons he wasn’t allowed to live on his own, find a job on his own terms, or go to college without someone else's permission.

It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t okay but it wasn’t like one teenage omega was going to be changing anyone’s mind. His parents were fine with the way things were; it had been a good enough system for his mother and hundreds of thousands of other omegas so of course it was good enough for him.

Besides, he had the perfect mate so what was the problem? He should have been grateful because he didn’t have to go through any drawn out courting or mate searching. It wasn’t like he was in an omega shelter somewhere or hadn’t lead a perfectly comfortable middle class privileged life.

Some omegas, his mother would say while frowning at him, were just snatched up by immoral alphas and betas and ruined (she always whispered ruined while her bright brown eyes widened dramatically) and unable to find a good mate after that. Some were forced bonded and had no one to advocate or fight on their behalf.

Once upon a time things had been much worse for omegas, why couldn’t he understand that? Not too long ago he could have been stolen, used for breeding and kept like a pet and there would have been nothing anyone could have done for him. Things were much better now.

Besides, he was going to get married to his best friend and be taken care of and have beautiful children and everything would be great for him. He’d never have to worry about the things other people worried about.

He was lucky and he didn’t appreciate it, or so he was told.

Constantly.

His and Riley’s parents had lectures for Riley as well, told him he needed to get him into line and take control. He was an alpha and if Sam was going to be his mate he needed to have a firmer hand, deal with his mouthiness and get him in line. Riley needed to be a proper dominate partner, not let Sam get caught up in things other than mating and kids.

So Sam stopped talking to Riley about things because it was one thing for him to be ungrateful and in trouble but it was something else for Riley to be in trouble with him.

When they was 17 and graduation was looming and people were starting to talk mating ceremonies Sam started feeling edgy. He felt like time was running out and the walls were pressing in because...well, he knew what his family expected.

He knew his parents loved him, he never doubted it, and he knew that they knew more about the world than him and they were only setting him on the path they felt was safest and best and that they had their reasons, so many reasons, and it was...suffocating.

He spent nights sitting on the back porch and thinking about just...running away and never coming back.

Except what the hell would he do out there in the real world by himself except become one of the horror stories his mother told? Any place that would hire an omega without parental or mate permission wasn’t going to be on the up and up and it was likely to end up with him in a situation he didn’t want to be in, which was besides the fact he hadn’t even graduated yet, which would just limit him that much more.

And he’d likely be picked up by the cops or something before he got that far and brought back home to his very disappointed parents and Riley. Or maybe he wouldn’t, maybe he’d ruined and then no one would want him, which would almost be a blessing.

\---

Sam didn’t look up when his door creaked open and the scent of grass and pine crept into his room. His parents had gone out for dinner and his sisters had long since moved out (Caroline and her wife were expecting their first pup this summer, Ashley and Anna were both in the army and stationed in Texas and Germany, respectively) so that only left one potential visitor.

He was used to Riley creeping into his bedroom when the house was otherwise empty. After he’d presented a so called ‘appropriate’ distance had to be maintained most of the time, which put the ax to any sleepovers. Which was annoying, since sleepovers had only just started involving making out. But then the whole point was to protect his ‘virtue’.

From Riley.

For Riley.

Sam wasn’t sure he understood the reasoning behind it at all.

They had a chaperone now the vast majority of the time which was a pain but they worked around it well enough. It helped that Riley lived so close and that he could climb out of his bedroom window and jog over to Sam’s house in less than five minutes.

They had found there were a wide variety of ways they could make use of a few unsupervised hours.

“Is that your english essay?” His door clicked shut and he smiled faintly at the sound of the lock being turned.

“Yeah.” Sam rubbed at his eyes and stifled a yawn. “Ten pages on the Grapes of Wrath. If you’d been any later I think I could have been asleep on the desk.”

And that would have been a waste of a perfectly decent night alone in the house.

“Lucky for you I brought something more interesting.” A stack of papers was dropped next to his keyboard.

Sam looked at it, cocking an eyebrow at the glossy brochures. He picked one up, frowning at the image of smiling teenagers in front of an old stately looking building. The name of a college was written across the front and, in smaller letters ‘omega approved programs’. He reached for another and found it was basically identical, but with a different set of smiling faces and a different college name.

“What’s this?”

Riley made the face he always made when he thought Sam was being stupid (which was a lot of the time, as it turned out) “College brochures. I thought we could look at them. I picked ones close to Air Force bases. I know we can’t really decide on one yet or anything because who knows what will happen but...why are you making that face?”  

“You want me to go to college?” Sam hated how unsure he sounded, cringed internally at how tiny his voice had become. When had that happened?

“Uh. I don’t want you to do anything?” Riley’s eyes darted down to the desk then back up to Sam’s face. “I thought it was what you wanted? I know you haven’t said anything in a while but I figured you were just playing along for the parents. If you wanted to do something else that’s fine with me, you know I’ll back you up.”

Sam looked away and swallowed. He knew Riley would back him up, had spent the last 3 years wedging himself between Sam and their parents whenever the talks started and the constant disapproval was on the upswing.

He did it even when Sam told him not to.

“Pretty sure I’m the one who's supposed to be doing what you want.”

“Since when?” He could hear the smile in Riley’s voice. “You’ve been ordering me around since before we could talk.”

Sam rubbed at his eyes again then offered up a smile. “I’m just tired.”

Beyond tired.

“I know.” Riley bent down and pressed his lips into the hollow behind his ear, just above the scent gland. Sam closed his eyes and sighed, leaning into Riley’s warmth. “Hey, Sam?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t leave without me.”

Sam’s eyes snapped open and he twisted around, heart skipping a beat and a denial on his lips. Riley pulled back just enough to meet his eyes and the understanding there had him blinking suddenly burning eyes. Arms snaked around him, a comforting trap.

“Yeah.” Like he could ever really leave Riley. He thought about, had started to do it a few times, but he kind of loved Riley. Not in a ‘complementary scents’ kind of way or a ‘This alpha would be a good mate’ way, but in a ‘sitting up at night and playing video games, waking up at 5am to run together, wrestling on the couch and then kissing until Sam forgot how to breathe’ kind of way. In a way that made him back down from his parents and stop fighting and just accept because he was afraid of what would happen between him and Riley if he didn’t.

“Okay.”

“Oh good. Because I bought this ring and I don’t think you can return that kind of thing and I’d be pretty depressed if I just had to hang on to it, you know?”

Sam chuckled wetly. “Wouldn’t want that.”

Riley kissed him, wet and open mouthed and Sam felt the familiar sensation of liquid heat pooling inside of him, that small way he even betrayed himself.

Riley produced a small black ring box from his back pocket. Sam took it, opened it, and stared at the simple silver loop and wondered if he was supposed to feel like he was giving something up when he took it out of the box.

\---

Things got out of hand.

Or maybe not really.

Sam wasn’t sure what to think as he ran his fingers over the perfect outline of his teeth on Riley’s right pectoral, smearing the blood that was still oozing from the wound. Riley hissed and batted at his hands, glaring at him.

“Sorry.”

There was a couple different ways to handle mating. Some people just filled out the paperwork, got to the deed, and called it good. Some people went the wedding route and some people went old school and had the biting as a public affair. Which was horrifying since, as far as Sam knew, the biting was kind of a sex thing.

Yeah, he thought as his eyes roamed over Riley who was naked, stretched out on the couch and splattered with fluids, it was a sex thing.

Sam would have been fine with just filing paperwork and being done but he was getting a wedding. Or rather his and Riley’s parents were getting that.

Or...had been.

Their parents had invited literally everyone who’d ever met them to the ceremony. The paperwork was picked up, filled out, and once they attached pictures of their mating marks it would be ready to be filed, nice and legal like.

The wedding was supposed to be in two weeks. Ceremony with a promise of no public biting (his mother had looked scandalized at the very idea), reception, and then they’d be allowed to slink off to their hotel room to make with the bonding. Two weeks after that Riley was off to Texas for basic training for 8 weeks and, if that worked out, 9 weeks of initial training in Airman school.   

It was all carefully planned out.

Sam had been going along with everything without protest, toeing the line and generally keeping everyone happy. Except Riley who just looked annoyed as hell the entire time and kept glaring at him when no one else was looking.

Sam had never been more tired in his entire life and he just couldn’t get it together enough to find out what was upsetting Riley. His parents were the bigger concern and he was being yanked all over the place and watched so closely that even if he’d wanted to get a minute alone he wasn’t sure he could have managed it.

Besides they’d have the entirety of their lives to talk.

He’d woken up that morning to find his parents gone; they’d rushed out in the middle of the night because Caroline's wife had gone into labor almost early. They’d left a note on the frig but hadn’t seen fit to actually wake him up or speak to him, which was pretty typical actually.

Riley’s parents would be in to check on him/make sure propriety was maintained (sometimes Sam wanted to tell his parents he’d let Riley put his hands and mouth just about everywhere there was to put them at this point and that his ‘virtue’ was more of a technicality based on ‘Pregnancy Bad’ than anything else’) and they’d be back as soon as possible, don’t worry about any of the plans because they’d handle them while they were gone.

Business as usual then. Sit tight, don’t do anything meaningful, wait.

He’d been putting serious thought into eating leftover pizza for breakfast when someone knocked on the front door. He’d expected another distant relative (he’d met a lot of them lately) or Riley’s parents who’d misplaced their key or yet another wedding related delivery.

He’d found Riley.

Or, more accurately, he’d started to open the door only to be pushed back and into a wall, mouth caught in hard wet kiss. He’d responded accordingly, tugging on Riley and licking his way into the other man’s mouth, and had found himself in the living room, decidedly naked and bent over the arm of the couch, before he gathered enough brain power to ask Riley what the hell he was doing.

Which was a silly question. Riley seemed to agree because he laughed and wiggled his fingers, dragging a stuttered moan out of Sam who, any other time, would be a least a little embarrassed about how easily Riley had gotten fingers into him and how slick he was getting.

“I feel like we’ve done this before.” Riley paused deliberately. “You’re not usually so...ready though. Did you miss me?”

“No.” Maybe.

They had been limited to hand holding and chaste kisses since plans had picked up and he was just a week past his last heat, which was a short enough time that he was still ridicliously horney.

“Yeah, no, that. I’m-ah. yeah.” Sam blinked and told himself not to push back into Riley’s hand. “I mean. You know.”

Riley pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades. “I want this to just be me and you, not a bunch of people we don’t fucking know and a whole ceremony we aren’t involved with.”

Oh.

He wanted to

OH

“That’s. Okay.” And it was okay. It was the best thing Sam had heard in years, actually, he didn’t know why they hadn’t thought of that before. Or maybe Riley was just rubbing over that spot that made his brain start melting and anything would sound like a good idea.

Best idea ever.

“We’re talking the mating thing, right? Or the sex thing? Both?” Both would have been fantastic. A gentle prod and his toes curled. “Ah. Fuck.”

“Yes.” Riley agreed and when Sam glared over his shoulder at him he was grinning widely. A warm feeling bloomed in Sam’s chest.

“Funny. But uh. Condoms?”

Riley smile melted into something dumbfounded. “For?”

Sam opened his mouth then shut it, unsure if Riley was just a failure at sex ed and was unaware that pregnancy was a risk even when he wasn’t in heat or was aware and just didn’t think that was a problem.

He was thinking harder than he really wanted to be considering. Riley took the lull as a chance to withdraw his fingers (Sam didn’t whine, he really didn’t)  and take a step back to shed his own clothing.

He stopped, digging a clear bottle out of his pants then tossed them aside. He tugged Sam around onto the actual couch, pressing open mouthed sucking kissed onto his neck as he went. He let himself be arranged so he was sitting in the corner of the couch and Riley was kneeling between his legs, stroking his cock with one hand and holding the bottle up to his face with the other.

“You know I can still get pregnant right?”

Brown eyes slid over to him. “I was in the same health class as you.”

“Were you?” Sam snapped, trying to cover the panic he was feeling. Riley knew, had to be aware he wasn’t on any kind of birth control, hadn’t brought condoms, and suddenly it all seemed like a really bad idea.

He knew everyone expected them to bond and then start cranking out pups (hell, he wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a baby registry set up right along the wedding one already) but Riley had never said anything about it and the school stuff and Sam had thought

He couldn’t do this.

He knew he was supposed to but he just...couldn’t go right to being mated and pregnant and someone’s fucking parent before he was old enough to actually do anything. He knew that was what a lot of other people did, what his mother had done, but he was choking on the thought.

He had to stop this, all of this.

Riley turned the bottle over and squeezed a dollop into other hand. He smeared it over and down his fingers then, rising up a little bit, reached back.

“What the fuck?” Sam blurted out.

“Hmm?” Riley’s voice was still thick with laughter but also a hint of strain. Then he went still, staring down at Sam. “You okay?”

“I have no idea.” Sam said honestly.

Riley tilted his head to the side, lips turning down. “We don’t have to do this Sam. We can wait for the ceremony or call it all off or...whatever you want.”

He looked nervous and maybe a little scared. Sam pushed out a breath then craned his neck, trying to get a better view of what Riley was doing. Riley shifted his knee and Sam could see he’d worked a finger into himself, watched him press into the tight pucker and maybe this time he did make a quiet whining noise.

“We’re good.” Confused but back on the ‘aroused’ side of things which was an improvement on ‘can’t breathe, freaking out’ “That is kind of hot. Just so you know.”

“Thanks.” Riley huffed out a relieved laugh. “I was worried.”

Sam nodded absently. “Yeah, no, good. You uh. Need help with that?”

Riley shrugged with was as good as a ‘please go ahead’ for Sam. He squeezed lube onto his fingers then wrapped an arm around Riley’s waist, hauling him a little closer, and ran his hand down the crack of his ass. He brushed over his entrance then pushed, sinking in easily. He turned his head and muffled a groan against Riley’s body as slick velvety heat gripped his finger.

“You could-” Riley rocked back a little “Two. I opened myself up some before I came over.”

Sam licked the back of his teeth to keep from swallowing his tongue then did as he was told, pulling back then sinking two fingers inside. A tighter fit but soon enough Riley was opening up for him, panting and squirming as he moved his fingers apart and rotated his hand, mimicking what Riley had done to him other times. 

He bent his fingers, rubbed and searched then felt what he was looking for. Riley arched up then sank back on his fingers and Sam couldn’t stop himself from echoing the throaty noise he made. Riley moved one of his legs so it was outside of Sam’s leg then sank down a little further.

He got three fingers in and Riley was trembling when he gasped out “That’s enough.” He lifted up, pushing Sam’s hand away and fitting his other leg outside of Sam’s body. A slick hand wrapped around his leaking cock and it took a serious show of will to not thrust up into Riley’s grip or move at all as the other man got him lined up.

He was kind of proud of himself, actually, because he felt like he was on fire, skin hot and prickling, lungs just barely drawing in enough air.

Riley slid down a little and Sam’s teeth clamped down on his lower lip and he buried his fingers into the couch. Riley was wet and hot around him, tight almost to the point of pain, and it was sickening how good it felt already.

Riley’s eyes were screwed shut in a grimace of pain and the hand he’d put on Sam’s chest had curled up into a fist. Sam reached up, ran a hand down his side, and stayed as still as he could.

Incredibly proud of himself.

It took a little time with Riley working himself down some and then sliding back up carefully, working himself open and adjusting and Sam might had gone insane once or twice, but then Riley was flush against him. Riley’s walls twitched down around him and he breathed, groaned and tipped his head back against the back of the couch.

Riley let out a breathless laugh. “You look like you’re in pain.”

Then moved his hips, shallow circular movements that were barely anything at all but felt amazing anyway. He put his hands on Riley’s hips, pulled and gripped them, sank his fingers in. Riley ducked down, licked a stripe up his neck and wrapped a hand around the back of his head, and tightened his thighs around him.

“Touch me.” Was husked into his ear and tested all of his limits. He groaned and gripped Riley tighter, rolling his hips up to meet a downward motion and they both made obscene sounds together. He did manage to get a hand between them and around Riley’s cock, which was hard and hot in his grasp. he stroked it, not quite able to match Riley’s rhythm (or any rhythm at all) but he twisted his hand at the base like he knew he liked and the noises Riley made let him know he was doing a good enough job.

He moved more, sank deeper though he kept the same languid pace and everything seemed to fade away except the feel of Riley and the soft gasping noises he was making into his neck. Warm tension coiled in Sam’s stomach, pulled at him.

The decision to bite Riley wasn’t a conscious one. Riley nipped at his neck, moaned into his ear and then he was wiggling, ducking his head, and sinking his teeth in. Riley shouted then moaned brokenly. Everything went pale and blurry. He shut his eyes as copper touched his tongue and spilled into Riley.

There was a warm splash between them then Riley went limp, crumpling against him.

Which was how he found himself sitting on the couch with Riley sprawled bonelessly next to him, bleeding and looking disgustingly blissed out.

“We’re going to be in so much trouble.”

Riley smiled lazily then rolled up to his knees, pressing back into Sam’s lap and going for his neck again. Teeth grazed the spot where his neck met shoulder then bit down, lightly at first then with more pressure. Skin pulled then gave, splitting under Riley’s teeth, and a shiver of pleasure streaked with pain ran down Sam’s spine.

\---

“New Mexico is hot.” Sam muttered, collapsing onto the couch. His parents had been nice enough to send their couch (aka the one he and Riley had defiled) along when he’d packed up the uhaul to head down to Albuquerque. "I think I'm dying. Do I look dead to you?"

Which brought their furniture total to 1 couch, an air mattress, and a coffee table. The apartment wasn’t big, only a bedroom, bathroom, main sitting area, and a tiny kitchen but in the 45 minutes Sam had been there he’d decided it was growing on him. It helped that it was close to University of New Mexico. Once Riley had been sure he’d made it through the initial Pararescue course he’d sent Sam every stitch of information he had about the colleges around Albuquerque and a dozen copies of the paperwork he needed to prove mate approval of him seeking further education.

He’d decided on UNM since it was one of the only schools offering things other than ‘education’ and ‘nursing’ for omegas.  

He’d gotten his letter of admission and endured his mother’s disappointed looks happily before he’d finally been able to move.

“Hmm. Yeah." Riley confirmed. He sat next to him and put his feet on the coffee table. “I’ve always liked this couch.”

“No one’s sat on it since you left.” Sam smirked at Riley’s deeply satisfied expression.

Riley’s sire had stopped by and found them passed out on the couch, naked and sporting new mating bites and it had been an event. There had been trouble, his parents had called and there was yelling and at no point had Sam stopped grinning.

The trouble was worth it because he’d been able to do something on his own terms and because Riley had sat at his side and held his hand through all of it.

There was still a party celebrating the bonding and it had been more tolerable than expected. Getting laid probably helped his overall mood, honestly.

Then they’d been stuck at Riley’s house with his parents until Riley had left for Texas and there’d been a general lack of sex (also Riley never got around to buying condoms and Sam had been starting to suspect it was on purpose.) which was a pretty crappy way to spend the two weeks before being separated for six months. He’d missed Riley’s graduation from basic training because of his heat which, coincidentally, had been the worst heat to date.

It turned out that a mateless heat once you’d bonded was tantamount to having your skin flayed and then rolling around in piles of salt.

Or at least he’d been unable to get out of bed, keep anything down, and had felt like his insides had grown claws and teeth and were trying to burrow out through his stomach. He had, in his misery, decided that their parents had encouraged them to get mated knowing they’d be separated for at least one heat so he’d be willing to go and get knocked up right away just to avoid any more heats for a while.

He’d shared his theory via letter with Riley and gotten a very short ‘Seems like a bad plan since there’s no way to get me to cooperate.’ and Sam had felt oddly warmed by it.

“So.” He turned to look at Riley. “How sturdy is that air mattress?”

Riley snorted. “We can look for a real bed this weekend. And make use of this fantastic couch until then.”

He reached over and slipped his hand under Sam’s shirt; fingers brushed over heated skin. Sam did his best to look unimpressed. “It’s been six months and you want to have sex on the couch? The romance is already dead isn’t it? I thought I'd at least get a bed, maybe dinner or something-”

“Well I was going to maybe let you bend me over the kitchen counter for the first go but now I’m not sure I want to.” Riley glared at him but didn't pull his hand back. To the contrary he crowded closer, bringing his mouth close to the fading mark on Sam's shoulder. 

“I bet that store around the corner has condoms. Just putting that out there. If maybe you wanted to do the bending instead of being the bender.”

He pulled back, stared at Sam then shrugged. “Once we get you an ID you can get an appointment for birth control.”

"Both?" 

Riley’s gaze flicked up to the ceiling and he muttered something quietly enough that even pressed as close as they were Sam couldn’t catch it. He just stared, waiting. Riley sighed loudly and made a show of throwing himself to the other end of the couch and looking sullen.

“It’s gross alpha stuff.”

“Well now I have to know.” Riley never claimed ‘alpha stuff’ when it came to the things he did or didn’t want to do. Hell, he rarely mentioned anything about their secondary genders ever. Riley said he thought of them as 'Sam and Riley' not 'alpha and omega' though it was pretty handy how it'd worked out but no, seriously, they could have ended up any combo of whatever and Riley would still want to have sex with him. Honest.

"I think I'm gonna go...outside." The other man said, rolling off of the couch. "You still have stuff in the uhaul, right?" 

"We've got it until tomorrow." Sam said dismissively. "You can't just say 'gross alpha stuff' and then walk way. There are rules, Riley, rules! Everyone knows starting to say something and then backing out makes you a douche. I don't want to have start telling people I'm mated to a douche. Is that what you want?"

Riley went pink. “It’s because I want to come inside of you. I want to fuck you, mark you up, and come inside of you. Fill you with my seed and all that stupid cliche trash and...yeah. There. Are you happy now that you’ve dragged that out of me? Bully.”

Sam blinked then took a moment to parse how he felt about that before deciding it appealed to that part of him that thought of Riley as ‘Alpha’, cried out to be filled when he was in heat, and sought out pine and grass every time he walked into a room.

Really appealed even because he felt that warm wet feeling starting.

He grinned. “Man. You’re disgusting.”

Riley turned away and started stalking towards the door. “I want a divorce.”

"But then you'll never get to fill me-"

"Jesus." He could see the blush creeping up the back of Riley's neck. "I might hate you a little bit." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gross alpha shit yo.  
> I had to do...like. Actual research on the Air Force and pararescue for this. Check it out. ;)  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_Pararescue#Pararescue_and_Advanced_Pararescue_Orientation_Course  
> And this is what I have Sam going to school for, if you were curious. It’s more of a thing next chapter, which deals with Sam and Riley in New Mexico, the dangers getting mated/married when your 18, and eventually Project Falcon. ...Maybe? This might end up being 5 or 6 parts, lol.  
> http://psych.unm.edu/Undergraduate%20Studies/bac-program.html  
> Sam is a little less ‘beaten down’ by the end of this part and will be more 'Sam' next chapter. 
> 
>  
> 
> Follow up thoughts: SO. This was originally just something I wanted to slam out because Sam was eating my other story (and demanding Steve, who was supposed to be Bucky's. Sam's a greedy jerk you guise.) and now I'm like 'Hmm. Maybe Steve, Sam, and Bucky should just get their own story that follows this rather than sharing a story with Tony/Bruce. That could work'
> 
> And then I'm like "SHIT, NO, NO MORE STORIES!!!! ;_: ....can it be Bucky/Sam/Steve? With snarky omegas and poor confused alpha kind of subby Bucky who is just adorably protective, needy, sweet, and kind of broken but it's okay because Sam and Steve don't mind?" and then I said "Sure it can." and then I gave in. So. ...I guess that'll be a thing now. *kicks rocks*


	3. Just Hold On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam isn't even sure what the hell he's saying at this point but he should probably stop.

Steve’s place was their first stop after Fury’s not-funeral. Sam was kind of vague on the whole point of a funeral for a guy who wasn’t dead when a good chunk of the people in attendance were aware of the not dead element but, honestly, heroes were weird. Weird shit just followed them all over the place and a fake funeral was the least of the strangeness.

Steve’s apartment was pretty much what Sam had expected. Neat, tidy, and homey with books, movies, and music spanning the years, bits of Captain America memorabilia, and framed photos.

Steve went to throw clothes into a bag and Sam lingered over the photos on his mantelpiece, curious in spite of himself. Finding information about ‘Captain America’ wasn’t hard at all; there was tons of it out there. It was possible to know intimate details of his life, even things that didn’t relate to the things he’d done in the war. His sketches were hanging in museums, his childhood home was a national landmark, and Sam thought he remembered something about his fifth grade report card being auctioned off for a couple hundred thousand dollars last year.

His ill fated romance with Peggy Carter was literally the sort of thing teenagers in their ‘doom and gloom’ phase swooned over.

Every little detail was known and had been analyzed by historians, picked apart by fans, and dragged back up in the modern era by the media.

Aside from the whole omega thing, obviously. Sam was wondering how that had gone missed but he couldn’t think of a polite way to bring it up. Steve had been pretty dismissive about it at the hospital, shrugging and confirming he was an omega like he wasn’t poking holes in *history*. Everyone knew that Captain America was the perfect soldier, the perfect American, the perfect alpha male that all other alphas should aspire to be like. It was just...facts. Sam was pretty sure it was in actual books that focused on Steve’s pre-War life that he’d been a good sort of alpha, small and sickly but still had all the alpha desire to protect others, alpha tenacity, and was a natural dominant and leader like only an alpha could be.

And it wasn’t like Sam bought into gender stereotypes or any of that ‘innate evolutionary traits’ stuff (the fact that Steve was an omega and didn’t seem to have a single submissive bone in his body said more on the subject than Sam could ever hope to) but he didn’t know how something that people tried to make the center of a person’s life could be...well, wrong when it came to someone as part of history as Steve was.

Or maybe it was less ‘mistake’ and more ‘deliberate’. Steve would have been far from the first person who realized they could pass as something else and then capitalized on that. There had been times when Sam resented being an omega and would have changed places as he could (Like every time he’d gone into heat and hadn't had Riley around to help because there was just no possible justification for how awful being in heat alone was.  None.)

He couldn’t begrudge Steve the right to live his life differently if he was so inclined and he didn’t want to demand answers like he was owed them or seem like he was casting judgement.

Though he was, perhaps, having a tiny sexuality crisis. He knew, fundamentally, the knowledge that Steve was an omega changed nothing between them. Steve was still Steve after all, he hadn’t been attracted because ‘alpha’ so not being an alpha should have had zero impact. It wasn’t like he expected a ‘turn off’ switch to be flipped with the new knowledge and yet...it felt strange.

But also not strange.

It wasn’t like same dynamic attraction between omegas was unheard of, though frowned upon in ‘polite society’. It was, by many, considered a sign of defectiveness because it meant you were somehow ‘denying’ the ‘natural’ inclination to be attracted to someone you could actually reproduce with.

He’d never thought about it before, hadn’t had any need to. He’d had Riley and then he’d had no one and then there was Steve (not that he had Steve, he wasn’t sure what was going on there. He wasn't sure what had happened really meant anything, he barely knew Steve really, and everything was pretty much craziness) and.

He shook himself from his thoughts and focused on the photos.

Sam arched an eyebrow at the framed photo of FDR hanging on the wall then snorted because Of Course. The first photo on the actual mantel was old and yellowing around the edges; there was a woman like light hair, bright smile, and a nurses hat pinned to her curls. Next was a beautiful woman with dark curls and dark lips in a military uniform. Lastly was a picture of Steve, a much smaller Steve, and the Winter Soldier. Or, rather, James Barnes, hair shorter, eyes brighter, smile ready. He had an arm tossed around Steve’s shoulders, holding the smaller man close, and Steve’s body was turned towards him just slightly, head inclined just a bit.

Ah.

“You wouldn’t believe how much trouble I went through to get these back. I think Tony and Fury had to threaten the Smithsonian on my behalf.” Steve said. Sam didn’t jump but it was a close thing. Steve sidled up next to him, smiling faintly. “That’s my mother, before she got sick, and Peggy.”

He brushed his fingers over the picture of the dark haired woman and there was a mixture of fondness and pain in his eyes. When he turned his attention to the one of himself and Barnes there was so much behind his eyes that Sam wanted to look away before he drowned in the hurt that was swimming there.

Steve Rogers was really a master of painful looks. 

“Me and Bucky. We were, uh.” Steve blinked then shakes his head. “Almost my whole life it was me and Bucky, you know? He protected me even when I didn’t want him to, fought my fights when I couldn’t even when I told him not to, wanted me when no one else would even though I told him he could do better. I was so sick...broken. I had the worst heats and they’d go on forever, so bad everyone thought I’d die a few times. Doctors didn’t think I’d ever be healthy enough to survive a pregnancy or anything like that. And Bucky...Bucky had betas and omegas lining up around the block.”

He tapped the picture. “But he wanted me.”

Sam breathed out then shook his head. “Damn.”

He didn’t know what else he could say to that, really. It sounded like something out of a book or movie, especially when you factored in that they’d both ‘died’ and come back, and the brainwashing, and the part where Steve was completely dedicated to getting the other man back. A really...depressing book. In which Sam played the unwitting other man/woman who eventually got left behind because that's what happened when you were an obstacle in the 'Big Romance'. 

Steve grinned wryly. “It wasn’t that dramatic at the time. We were best friends and it just fit.”

That he knew all about. He glanced at the photo again then shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Where do we start with getting your boy back?”

Steve blinked at him then sighed. “I like you.”

“Most people do.” He said easily even as he turned that over in his head and tried to pin down Steve’s tone.

That earned him a glare, but he could detect a kind of fondness underneath it. “I mean it. I just...it’s complicated."

"I hadn't noticed." Sam snorted then, noting Steve's frustrated look, softened a little. He was, perhaps, a tiny bit whipped. "It's fine you know? What happened before? You don't have to feel bad about it and it's good that he's alive. If I...If Riley...ah."

He stopped, blinking suddenly burning eyes because Riley wasn't even coming back. He'd seen it happen, saw the impact and the aftermath, had lived with that in his head ever since, and he knew there was no happy ending there. Not that he was sure what Steve had gotten could be called anything but an extension on an already painful nightmare and it wasn't fair to act like the absolutely shit deal Steve had gotten was any better than what he'd got. Sure as hell wasn't fair to Bucky, who probably didn't think being brainwashed and used by Hydra was a happy outcome, and it wasn't fair to Riley. 

Then again what was fair to Riley anymore? 

"I don't know what the fuck I'm saying man." He rubbed a hand over his scalp. "I think shock is finally setting in." 

Steve’s gaze flicked up towards the ceiling then back to Sam and he could literally see the ‘Fuck It’ in his eyes before he leaned in. It was a light kiss, chaste even, and nothing at all like the biting sloppy kisses from their one-night stand that suddenly looked like maybe it wasn’t a one night stand. Sam spared a thought to not dead alphas, actually dead alphas (stupid Riley), how weird two omegas getting together was, and a half dozen other things.

It was way too much baggage for such a careful kiss.

He reached up and tugged Steve closer, deepened the kiss, and felt Steve smile against his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ughhh. It’s like 100+ degrees where I live and I’m literally sweating all the creativity right out of myself. Anyway, the Sam/Steve part was long enough that I was comfortable posting it by itself while I work on the next Sam/Riley part. Which should be out soon, I promise! It’s half done and involves goofy heat sex/knotting and...idk, better something than nothing? *hangs head in shame*


End file.
